Wednesday, March 16, 2011

When the drummer drops the beat

I belong to a generation of jazz enthusiasts for whom a revolution took place when the Dave Brubeck Quartet produced their 1959 Time Out album. At that time, I went along to a Brubeck concert at the Stadium in Rushcutters Bay. Mesmerized by their complex rhythms, accentuated by the fabulous ethereal saxophone of Paul Desmond and the punchy bass strumming of Eugene Wright, I watched in amazement as their drummer Joe Morello drew a large white handkerchief from his coat pocket, in the middle of a piece, to wipe his sweating brow. Without losing a beat, he used the handkerchief as a drumstick for a second or so, nonchalantly, to the applause of the crowd. OK, it was a rehearsed gesture, but you needed to be Joe Morello to pull it off convincingly.

My description of that magic evening marked my first-ever momentary incursion into the world of creative writing, for the Honi Soit weekly of Sydney University. For the moment, I can't put my hand on that totally uninteresting document, but I promise to reproduce it here on my blog as soon as I find it. I've noticed, too, that there are web videos of this celebrated Brubeck excursion to the Antipodes.

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About Me

After working in various computing jobs, I retired to an old farm property in the Vercors mountain range, on the edge of the French Alps, where I spend my time writing, playing with the Internet and wandering around on the slopes with my dog Fitzroy, admiring wonders created by the Big Bang and Evolution.